30 Months in Death of Abandoned Wounded Illegal PA Arab

The Jerusalem Magistrates Court sentenced former policemen Baruch Peretz and Asaf Yekutiel to 30 months in prison, Monday morning, on convictions of causing death, by negligence, to a Palestinian Authority Arab who was detained for being outside the PA without a permit. The two were convicted, in May, for leaving Omar Abu-Jariban, barefoot and without food or water, by the side of a road next to the Opher prison camp, near Jerusalem in 2008 after they were told to return him to the PA. He had been injured when the car he stole overturned but there was no hospital or jail space for him in Rechovot. Two days later, Abu-Jariban's dehydrated body was found at the same spot.

In passing sentence, Judge Chaim Li-Ran wrote, "I cannot understand how even though they were fully aware of the physical and mental condition of the prisoner, they were blind from understanding and internalizing the misery of a human created in the image [of G-d]. They left Abu-Jariban just so, in the dead of night on a dark road without knowing themselves where they dropped him off, without providing him at least with [something to] drink. As if he were a useless object."